Unidentified clicky 80's IBM optical mouse with nonstandard connector

[joshwyant]

Ran across this on Friday in a recycling center, tangled up with some serial mice. I can't find any reference to this mouse on Google Images or the web, or its 9-pin female connector.

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Edit: This was also placed on top of the Intel microcontroller.

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[Findecanor]

Looks a lot like the early optical mouse from Mouse Systems in this video:

[dotdash]

Interesting. The connector is probably a standard 9 pin serial. The serial connector would have been unusual if it were a mouse made for a PC, maybe it was for a larger system. Three buttons would have been more common on a Unix workstation. One rarely sees optical mice of that vintage. I never came across them, but some of the early ones required a special mouse pad with a metal grid in it.

[joshwyant]

Yeah, they seem a lot alike! Looks like a similar optical mechanism, and the bottom is laid out almost identically. So is the slope. There's a longer sticker on the top with the IBM logo, the buttons are boxier, and it's textured like the older PC/XT/AT.

I do think it's serial, but female instead of male. I wonder where it plugged in? Maybe a special card? Maybe there's a male-male adapter that can be used to plug it into a com port.

That mousepad is interesting, does seem really strange. The way it's set up, I bet this one probably needs the same thing, which would be a little disappointing if I can't find one.

[Findecanor]

Three buttons would have been more common on a Unix workstation. One rarely sees optical mice of that vintage. I never came across them, but some of the early ones required a special mouse pad with a metal grid in it.

I think that type from Mouse Systems is most closely associated with workstations from Sun Microsystems, yes. But the angled buttons are a bit unusual ...

I would speculate the custom to have three buttons is more because Mouse Systems' mice had it than it being specifically a Unix thing. Xerox, who was one of the very first to make mice, also used three buttons.
And mice with three buttons were very common for PCs too before the introduction of the scroll wheel.
For the PC's serial port there were two main protocols that mouse brands implemented: a two-button protocol from Microsoft, and a three-button protocol from Mouse Systems.

[joshwyant]

I found another Mouse Systems model, still different positioning for the apertures:

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[joshwyant]

More findings: 1981 invention of the optical mouse, and a 1982 mouse with a female connector.

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From: https://www.gearrate.com/en/mouse/history/

[joshwyant]

Here's a teardown of a Mouse Systems mouse. The electronics are completely different, but otherwise the inside looks much the same, with some mechanical differences.

http://kuzyatech.com/optical-mouse-the-old-way

[sharktastica]

It appears to be an IBM 5277 Mouse (source 1, source 2). It's intended for IBM 3270 family colour/graphics terminals (3179-Gx, 3192-Gx0) and PC-based emulators (3270 PC AT/G and 3270 PC AT/GX). The earliest mention I can find on IBM's Offering Info portal is June 1984 at a price of $340 USD (around $1k today!). It was withdrawn in December 1997. It was made by Summargraphics for IBM.

Note the "7002" at the start of the barcode number? That coincidentally is the feature number for the IBM 3270 Personal Computer AT/GX Option Kit - a kit that allowed various optional hardware (including a 5277 mouse) to connect to an IBM 3270 PC AT/GX.

[robinsonb5]

If you dismantle it again it might be a good idea to put a label over the EPROM window in the MCU - it'd be a shame for stray light to wipe the firmware.

[AndyJ]

Interesting. The connector is probably a standard 9 pin serial. The serial connector would have been unusual if it were a mouse made for a PC,

There was a special mouse port on the PC Junior, and the PS/2s had round "PS/2" ports, but the OEM IBM PC, XT, and AT mice were all serial.

[AndyJ]

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YES! Buttons on the front, where your fingers naturally curl, instead of on the top.

[Muirium]

Buttons on the front, where your fingers naturally curl…

…if you palm grip your mouse. If you finger grip, top buttons are in the right place.

Spoiler:

https://www.daskeyboard.com/blog/claw-g ... use-grips/

Das Keyboard blog pic only for illustration. Those grips look mighty uncomfortable to me! But you get the basic idea: people hold mice in different ways. The centre of my mouse is just in front of the open V between my fore and middle fingers. I hold it way further out from my wrist than you likely do. So my fingers like buttons up on the top where they can actually reach, given my grip.

[AndyJ]

Finger gripping? Bah! Ergonomically unsound as well as uncomfortable.

[Muirium]

Finger gripping? Bah! Ergonomically unsound as well as uncomfortable.

Bullshit.

I’ve been using mice since the late 1980s, and finger gripping then since my hands reached adult size in the 90s. The few palm-filling mice I tried which are as big as my (XL glove size) hands aren’t comfortable and give me a lot of fatigue very quickly. I’m best off with low profile mice, in finger grip, which I’ve used extensively for decades to no ill effect at all.

Finger grip keeps my wrist off the table—vital for comfort! just as it is for typing on keyboards, too—and lets me zip the mouse around much quicker and more accurately than dragging it under my palm. It’s by far the superior grip for me.